Archive for November, 2011

We took this photo Tuesday (Nov. 29, 2011) at Occupy Oakland. Later in the day we sent it to the Photos of the Day people at the BBC. It seems they didn’t use this photo, so I guess I can post it on my little old blog.

Occupy SF protester attempts to take a siesta while protesting on Black Friday in ‘Frisco.

We posted some different photos and this story on the Op Ed News site.

Massive numbers of tourists, shoppers, protesters, journalists, and officers from the San Francisco Police Department converged on the Union Square area of the famed city by the Bay (dubbed “Baghdad by the Bay” by columnist Herb Caen) to partake in the city’s annual celebration of Black Friday. There were some heated discussion between the compassionate conservative Christian conspicuous consumers and the Native American style philosophers who believe that the Public Service Announcement featuring Iron Eyes Cody (it’s on Youtube) had things in accurate perspective forty years ago.

Occupy San Francisco used the day to protest the philosophy behind America’s conspicuous consumption by those who have an excess of purchasing enthusiasm to point out that today’s frivolous gift is just grist for tomorrow’s land fill garbage dump.

The world’s laziest journalist (combining columnisting and photography) observed the annual Black Friday events for four hours before succumbing to a bout of fatigue, but the next generation of “record the event for posterity” in the “first draft of history” manner continued their vigil for potential dynamic still and video images.

San Francisco’s legendary Laughing Squid man was present as he is for almost any and allSan Franciscoevents tinged with political overtones. (Where isSan Franciscocolumnist Freddy Francisco, when he is needed most? Will it be up to the World’s Laziest Journalist to track him down and do a profile of the ubiquitous protester?)

San Francisco’s nude protesters were conspicuous by their absence Friday.

Is it true (as some conspiracy theory lunatics would have us believe) thatSan Franciscoin 2011, will be vying to regain the highly covetedHippestCityin the World Award that it previously had captured in 1967 – 69, as didParisin 1926 – 28?

Is it true that the trophy has engraved upon it, the classic passage by Hunter S. Thompson: “ . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world . . . .”?

Whatever.

On Black Friday, the tourists, the shoppers, the protesters, the journalists and the police officers all seemed to be in total agreement with the Hunter Thompson sentiment: “There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was <I>right</I>, that we were winning.”

Comparing the tumultuous Black Friday celebration in San Francisco with other noteworthy Fog City events from the past, such as seeing the Jefferson Airplane perform free at Golden Gate Park, brings to mind a bit of Sixties philosophy: “Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.”

This example of folk art was seen at Occupy San Francisco recently. It was seen in front of the Treasury Building and that site was cleared out over the weekend. So this piece of art is now part of protest history.